McNAIR PAPERS 

NUMBER ONE 

EGYPT AND THE NEW 

ARAB COALITION 

By JOSEPH P. LORENZ 

-- --Y~-2 ".~.~-- ~-~--- 

THE INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL STRATEGIC ST
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THE INSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL-STRATEGIC STUDIES 

- NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY 

Fort Lesley, J. McNair 

Washington, DC 20319-6000 

February 1989 
EGYPT AND THE NEW ARAB COALITION 
EGYPT AND THE NEW 

ARAB COALITION 

By JOSEPH P. LORENZ 

~ S THE ECONOMIC and political balance among 

Arab states has shifted over the last twenty years, as 

alliances have come and gone and attitudes toward 

Israel have moved from confrontation toward negotiation, the 

Arabs have convened periodic summits to confirm the changes 

and turn them into common policy. These meetings are the 

mileposts of modern Arab diplomatic history. At conferences 

in Khartoum, Rabat, Baghdad, and Fez, new bearings were 

set in Arab-Palestinian relations and the conflict with Israel. 

This past year, in Amman and then in Algiers, two summits 

were held that illuminate the changes in attitudes and power 

relationships that have taken place in the Arab world since 

Camp David. 

The recent summits are important not only for the decisions they took--the solid front shown to Iran, Egypt's return 

to a position of Arab centrality, and the support pledged to 

the Palestinian uprising. Their longer term significance lies in 

the emergence of a new dynamic in inter-Arab relations: on 

all of the controversial issues, a new, centrist Arab coalition dominated the decisionmaking process. 

The appearance of this coalition raises a number of questions. Is the growing sense of common interest among Arabs 

a product of the Gulf war, or are deeper and more enduring 

factors at work? What issues does the moderate consensus embrace and what are its limits? How strong are the underlying 

bilateral relationships, especially those between Egypt and 

Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Iraq? Is the Arab-Israel peace 

process likely to be affected? And what impact will the Palestinian uprising have on the move toward the center? 
4 JOSEPH P. LORENZ 

Arab Nationalism 

Iran's proprietary interest in its Gulf neighbors concentrated Arab attention on what is important to the common 

interest and what is not. The net effect of the war in the Gulf-- 

along with the Mecca demonstrations and Iranian probing in 

the smaller sheikhdoms--has not been so much to create new 

configurations in the Arab world as it has been to accelerate 

a trend that has been under way for several years. It is a trend 

toward greater realism, less rhetoric, and a more serious search 

for common ground. It comes as a result of fundamental 

changes in the two spheres that most directly affect Arab relationships: the first has to do with ideologies and attitudes, the 

second with strategic relationships and power. 

The eclipse of secular ideology as a driving force in Arab 

foreign relations has been apparent for more than a decade. 

Pan-Arabism and Ba'athismmeven pan-Islam in the midst of 

an Islamic revival--have not only ceased to shape foreign policy 

but have lost even their mythic function of justifying policies 

based on state or personal power. Nationalism alone remains, 

and for most Arab countries it is increasingly a pragmatic, 

economically oriented nationalism without much sentimental 

overlay. 

Contemporary Arab attitudes toward pan-Arabism are 

especially instructive. If Arab unity as a serious political objective is dead--and it doubtless ismmore real interest exists 

in policy coordination, among a broader spectrum of Arab 

countries, than existed at the height of pan-Arab fervor. Partly 

this is because Arab solidarity no longer necessarily means 

doing things Egypt's way. The main components of power have 

been leveling in the last two decades, and this leveling has been 

good for cooperation. The huge growth in oil revenues in what 

had been the poorer Arab states led to a leap forward in 

literacy, higher education, and governmental and diplomatic 

expertise. And while this was going on, Egypt increasingly 

turned inward, striving to break out of the vise of burgeoning 

population and limited irrigable land. 

Egypt's bowing out of Arab politics has never been a question; Egypt could hardly do so if it wished. It has the largest 
EGYPT AND THE NEW ARAB COALITION 5 

population in the Middle East and the biggest standing army, 

a central and strategic location, continuingmif diminished m 

cultural preeminence, and a reservoir of teachers, technical experts, and farmers who serve by the millions in the oil-rich 

but population-poor Arab countries. Yet Egypt is not the 

regional colossus it once was, attracting or repelling its 

neighbors by its sheer weight and dynamism. The door has 

opened to a search for common ground among partners, based 

on realism and mutual self-interest. 

In Egypt pan-Arabism lives on as part of the legacy of 

Nasser, if only as a dream. For the masses especially panArabism is a dream that grows brighter as the years pass, a 

vision of Nasser as the voice of all Arabs and protector of the 

dispossessed. The continuing power of Nasser's name is shown 

by the formation of an active new political group that calls 

itself Nasserist and publishes a newspaper entitled The Voice 

of the Arabs. Populist and left-wing in orientation, this group 

attracts people who are repelled by the atheism of the traditional left. Despite the name of its newspaper, its message is 

based on a version of Nasserist economic socialism rather than 

on any serious program for Arab unity. 

For many thoughtful Egyptians, some form of integration persists as a realistic long-term goal for countries with 

economies as complementary as those of the Arabs. Egypt's 

growing ties with its neighbors are seen as building blocks that 

could lead to association into larger economic units and 

perhaps, over time and with careful preparation, to political 

federation. As a former Egyptian foreign minister put it, 

"Where there is capital in the Middle East, there's no knowhow, and where there is know-how, there's no capital. The 

real hope of the region is a marriage of the two--not for 

ideological, but for practical reasons." 

Other Egyptians maintain that a compelling reason for 

Arab integration is the imbalance in demographics and resource 

distribution that exists between Egypt and its immediate 

neighbors. Libya and the Sudan have the water and the irrigable land, Egypt the people to farm it. And a long history 

of close association among the three countries makes some 

sort of economic federation seem like a realistic long-term 
6 JOSEPH P. LORENZ 

objective. Moreover, as growing numbers of landless fellahin 

pour into the already overcrowed Egyptain cities, finding them 

work becomes critically important to the social, economic, and 

political health of the country. One safety valve that is already 

in place is the migration of farm labor to the region's other 

great river valley: hundreds of thousands of Egyptian farmers 

now work the fields of Iraq. 

The pragmatic drift of Egyptian thinking is evident in the 

changing attitudes toward Sadat as well as Nasser. If there is 

little desire to return to Nasser's pan-Arab activism, neither 

is there much bitterness left toward Sadat's pursuit of Egyptian interests at the expense of Arab solidarity--except, still 

for the left and the religious right. A frequently heard observation in Cairo these days is that although it is too soon to 

judge Sadat's place in history, Egyptian grievances against him 

had more to do with his actions at home than his foreign 

policies. The desire to become the center of Arab action again 

is great, but few would trade for it a return to the time when 

Israel occupied the Sinai and war seemed the only way to get 

it back. 

What happened to the secular ideology of pan-Arabism 

has happened also to pan-Islam. A powerful unifying force 

through much of Arab history, Islam works today to keep the 

Arab and Islamic states apart more than it pulls them together. 

Iranian expansionism is of course a major centrifugal force, 

widening the historic breach between Sunni and Shi'ite Islam. 

But the eclipse of pan-Islamic ideology occurred before the 

Iranian revolution. What is most striking is that now, as the 

fundamentalist wave gathers force and threatens to engulf a 

number of Arab governments, there is no active pan-Islamic 

movement that aims to break down the barriers among Arab 

and Islamic states. 

One reason no such movement has developed is that 

nowhere in the Arab world are the clerics in power. But even 

in opposition, the ulama and the lay Islamic groups are not 

normally hesitant to express their views, and few have called 

for serious steps toward Islamic unity. A number of characteristics of contemporary Islam explain their difference. First 

is the difficulty of reconciling the different Islamic styles and 
EGYPT AND THE NEW ARAB COALITION 7 

points of view that exist from one Arab country to another. 

To imagine the Wahabi clerics of Saudi Arabia forming a 

government with the Egyptian divines of AI Azhar is as hard 

to envision as a harmonious coalition of born-again Baptists 

and Anglo-Catholics. A second divisive force is the leadership 

rivalries and competing interests of the national Islamic 

organizations--the Egyptian and Syrian branches of the 

Muslim Brotherhood, for example. And, Islam has for so long 

been used by Arab governments to further their secular national interests that the clerics have become wary of efforts 

to involve them in international affairs. 

If there is no serious movement toward pan-Islamic unity, 

the religious revival nevertheless affects Arab relations in other 

ways. Often the impact is subtle and indirect, submerged in 

the overall world view of people who are both Muslim and 

Arab. The strands of Arabism, Islam, and patriotism are in 

fact so interwoven in the national consciousness that frequently 

no one of them can be separated out as the motive for a particular foreign policy. 

Of all the Arabs, Egyptians are probably the most acutely 

aware of the tension between religious and secular loyalties. 

For fifty years the Muslim Brotherhood clashed violently with 

a succession of governmentsmfrom the Palace to the Wafd 

to Nasser and Sadat. And long before the Brotherhood came 

into being, questions of national identity preoccupied Egyptian thinkers. Was one a Muslim first, then an Arab, and then 

an Egyptian, or did the claims of one rule out the others? Most 

Egyptians think of themselves as all three, and see nothing 

unreasonable in doing so. They are comfortable with Nasser's 

image of three concentric circles, with Egypt in the center and 

Islam, the Arab world, and Africa in the outer rings. 

One example of the indirect ways in which Islam affects 

Arab foreign policy is the impact that it has on policies toward 

the Palestinians. Most Arab policy-makers probably view their 

countries' Palestinian postures as a mixture of national interests 

in the region and the moral claims of fellow Arabs whose land 

has been taken from them. The Islamic perspective is different. 

For the devout, the expulsion of Muslims from Palestine by 

non-Muslims from the West is seen as a pure and simple 
8 JOSEPH P. LORENZ 

repetition of the Crusades. It is a humiliation that calls not 

only for Arab solidarity but for religious retribution. Indeed, 

the orthodox do not accept Arabism as something separate 

from Islam, but regard it as a part of Islam and encompassed 

by it. 

Because the problem is viewed in religious terms, Muslim 

Brotherhood support for the Palestinians has been long standing and passionate. The intensity of its commitment, reiterated 

in sermons and Islamic books and periodicals, cannot help but 

influence the views of Arab policy-makers. And for those 

regimes whose main internal opposition comes from the 

religious right, the Islamic approach to the Palestinian problem has a more direct impact. In Syria, for example, the fundamentalist uprising of the late 1970s was due partly to the 

regime's fierce attacks on the PLO in Lebanon; in return, the 

government, responding to Islamic protests, drew back from 

its confrontation with the Palestinians. 

In Egypt after Camp David, the effect of the Islamic community's opposition to the peace treaty with Israel had a reverse 

twist to it. The centerpiece of the Brotherhood's grievance was 

what it saw as a sell-out of Palestinian rights. Sadat's view 

was that he had done everything possible to advance the interests of the Palestinians as well as those of Egypt; Camp 

David, he believed, could at least begin the process of breaking down the psychological walls between Israel and the Arabs. 

This conviction, combined with a stubborn streak and disdain 

for the fundamentalists, worked to reinforce his commitment 

to peace with Israel. 

The one Egyptian foreign policy issue that might appear 

to have been most directly affected by Islamic attitudes is the 

war in Afghanistan. Without question, the Egyptian regime's 

material and moral support for the mujaheddin was welcomed 

by the Brotherhood, and in explaining its posture, the government did stress its solidarity with fellow Muslims. But the policy 

almost certainly had little to do with Islamic views. Its origin 

lay in the mainstream of Egyptian foreign policy since independence: opposition to great power interference in the 

Third World, in this case to Soviet expansionism. 
EGYPT AND THE NEW ARAB COALITION 9 

The Decline of Ba'athism 

Of all the ideologies that have shaped Arab foreign 

policies, Ba'athism has come the closest to total eclipse. For 

nearly twenty years, beginning with the 1958 Egypt-Syria 

merger and ending with the abortive federation between Syria 

and Iraq, Ba'athism was a driving force in inter-Arab relations. Its commitment to the destruction of the artificial borders 

that the West imposed on the Arab world after the first World 

War was for many Arabs, especially those in the Fertile Crescent, a blueprint for action. Today the institution of the party 

remains, but the ideology has become a tool for mobilizing 

mass opinion and preserving the status quo. 

In Iraq, even before the war with Iran, the subordination of Ba'athist ideology to the interests of the state was well 

under way. The war accelerated the process. One of its 

casualties was the Ba'athist practice of choosing allies according to their political principles--a taste that could no longer 

be indulged given the need for financial help from the Gulf 

Arabs. The pan-Arab component of Ba'athism nevertheless 

served its purpose: as a rationale for wartime sacrifices and 

a means of assailing the rival Ba'athists of Syria for siding with 

Iran against the interests of the Arab nation. 

In Syria, as in Iraq, the Ba'athist decline paralleled a 

growing concern with the traditional priorities of states and 

regimes. Three developments contributed to the change in 

Syrian priorities. First, President Assad came to power with 

a pragmatic, almost military approach to foreign affairs that 

focused on achieving a reasonable fit between goals and 

capabilities--in operative policy at least, if not in rhetoric. 

Assad's contempt for ideologically based policy no doubt stems 

partly from his experience as Defense Minister at the time of 

the June War, when the Ba'athists propelled Syria into a conflict it could not win. The second development was the changing 

dynamic of inter-Arab relations. After Nasser's humiliation 

in 1967 and his death three years later, no Arab state remained 

with both the interest in Arab unity and the weight to move 

toward its achievement. 
10 JOSEPH P. LORENZ 

And in Syria as elsewhere in the Arab world, a new 

generation has reached maturity that finds the old belief 

systems inappropriate to its problems. Concerned with the hard 

realities of state-building, this generation's psychic needs seem 

to be more fully met by religion than by secular political 

ideologies. Nor are its members obsessed with the problems 

of the past. After sixty-five years they have become used to 

living in the mini-states that were carved out of the eastern 

Arab world and, indeed, have a stake in their preservation. 

As the injustices that stemmed from the Ottoman Empire's 

breakup merge with the others of history, so also does the 

frustration pass that was the moving force behind Ba'athism. 

Changing Regional Interests 

The Amman summit that opened the way for Egypt's 

Arab reintegration took place exactly nine years after Egypt 

was expelled from the Arab League at Baghdad for having 

abandoned the struggle with Israel. The Baghdad summit was 

as totally controlled by those rejecting a negotiated settlement 

with Israel as that in Amman was dominated by those favoring such a peace. Little changed during most of the period between summits. Indeed, except for Fez in 1982, holding a summit had been impossible because of the intensity of inter-Arab 

quarrels. 

This turnabout in inter-Arab dynamics was due partly to 

the movement toward realism and away from the ardent 

ideologies of the past. But equally important was a transformation in the strategic landscape of the Middle East. 

A number of developments altered the power positions 

of the main Arab actors and changed the ways in which they 

perceived their regional interests. First was revolutionary Iran's 

two-pronged challenge to the political legitimacy of Arab 

governments as well as to their territorial integrity; second was 

the PLO's dispersal from Beirut in 1982 and the relative 

quiescence of the Palestinian problem before December 1987; 

and third was the staying power of the peace treaty negotiated 

at Camp David, with its impact not only on Egyptian-Israeli 

relations but on Israel's interaction with the other Arabs. Still 

another important event was Hosni Mubarak's accesssion to 
EGYPT AND THE NEW ARAB COALITION 11 

power. By removing from the inter-Arab equation the element 

of personal bitterness toward Sadat, the way opened for Egypt 

to take advantage of the first three developments. 

The nature of the perceived threat from Iran varies from 

one Arab state to another. For Saudi Arabia, the very existence 

of another Islamic state that claims to represent all true 

believers--be it Sunni or Shi'ite--is a challenge to the 

legitimacy of the regime. That Iran's revolutionary Islamic 

republic is five times the Saudi population in size and much 

superior in military power heightens the danger. Yet, not until the Iranian demonstrations at Mecca sent an unambiguous 

signal of defiance to the kingdom's claim to Islamic leadership were the Saudis fully persuaded of the urgent need for 

a policy of deterrence and joint defense. 

For the smaller Arab countries that face Iran across the 

Gulf, the threat of subversion is more immediate than the 

challenge to political legitimacy, although the conservative 

sheikhs no doubt worry about both. The Palestinians, for their 

part, have still another concern. They fear that the other Arabs 

may become so preoccupied with Iranian ambitions that they 

lose interest in the Palestinian problem. As Arafat put it at 

Amman, the Arab leaders were intent on closing ranks in the 

face of Iranian threats because of "the danger of this fireball 

rolling closer to the oil wells."l 

The most complex of Arab attitudes toward Iran is that 

of Syria. Hostility toward Iraq and financial aid from Iran 

doubtless help to tilt Syria toward Iran. In any rational calculus, 

however, one would suppose those factors are offset by the 

smaller Syrian voice in Arab councils and the risk to more 

dependable sources of financial aid that the policy entails. 

Arabs outside Syria argue that traditional foreign policy considerations do not necessarily apply. They maintain that the 

more isolated the Syrian Alawite regime becomes, the greater 

its inclination to support hostile states on the Arab periphery 

such as Iran and minority groups such as the Shi'ites in 

Lebanon. By backing the "outs" and taking unpopular 

l Quoted in Youssef M. Ibrahim, "An Arab Consensus Is Seen on 

Opposition to Iran," New York Times, 11 November 1987, p. A3. 
12 JOSEPH P. LORENZ 

positions, Damascus not only makes itself heard in Arab policymaking but avoids being drawn into peace negotiations while 

in a position of less than strategic military parity with Israel. 

In Egypt the war's strategic consequences and its impact 

on the regional balance of power have been the paramount 

concerns. A consideration of legitimacy exists as well, but it 

is complex and affects Egyptian policy in contradictory ways. 

On the one hand, an overly belligerent posture toward Iran 

could have inflamed the radical religious right--even though 

the mainstream Islamic groups have generally (and somewhat 

tentatively) supported Egypt's pro-Iraq stance. On the other 

hand, an Iranian military victory might have galvanized Islamic 

resurgence and have thereby posed a much greater threat to 

the present system of government in Egypt. 

Egypt's strategic interests clearly lie in halting the expansion of Iranian power and influence. The overthrow of conscrvative regimes in the Gulf and their replacement by radical, 

pro-Iranian governments would push Egypt back to the defensive posture from which it has just emerged. Yet, Egypt's 

historic competitor in the Middle East has been not Iran but 

Iraq. Not only has the rivalry persisted for more than three 

thousand years, it sank to one of its more venomous moments 

just eight years ago, before lraq turned its attention elsewhere. 

The war had its perils, but from the Egyptian standpoint Iraq's 

dependence on the moderate Arabs was not one of them. 

The Palestinian Issue 

If the challenge from revolutionary Iran was the driving 

force behind the Arab world's new alliances, it was the quiet 

on the Palestinian front from 1982 to 1987 that opened the 

way for a return to practical, state-to-state policies. Several 

reasons explain the diminished attention given the Palestinian 

issue before the uprising in the occupied territories. First, the 

scattering of the main body of the PLO through the Middle 

East (much of it in the Maghreb, far from the confrontation 

with Israel) led to a sharp reduction in the PLO's physical 

power. Then the breach between Syria and the PLO after 

Arafat's second exit from Lebanon in December 1983 meant 

that the PLO had less leverage with the moderate Arab states, 
EGYPT AND THE NEW ARAB COALITION 13 

just as Assad no longer had a Palestinian card to play. Finally, 

a widening rift between Fatah and the Damascus-based PLO 

elements fragmented the PLO's voice and lessened the credibility of its claim to be sole spokesman for the Palestinians. 

Arab attitudes toward the PLO were also changing. As 

respect grew for leaders who spoke plainly and provided a 

better life for their people, there was a sense that the PLO was 

hamstrung by the need for consensus and that its leadership 

was becoming more interested in preserving its own position 

than in achieving an attainable agreement for the Palestinians. 

Contributing to the PLO's tarnished image in Arab eyes 

was the PLO's inability to defend its people in the Lebanese 

refugee camps from attacks by the Shi'ite Amal. But the war 

of the camps did more than damage the PLO's prestige. It was 

a major factor in the PLO's alienation from Syria, as Naef 

Hawatmeh's DFLP and George Habash's PFLP joined Arafat 

in opposition to Damascus because of Syrian support for Amal. 

And it meant that Syria's already hard-pressed economy was 

drained further as it struggled in Lebanon with the PLO and 

then with the Iranian-backed Hizbollah. The upshot was a further erosion of radical Arab weight in inter-Arab councils, 

already being hastened in the mid-1980s by Libya's reverses 

in Chad and domestic strife in Democratic Yemen. 

In early 1985 Hussein and Arafat agreed on principles 

for a Jordanian-PLO relationship in the negotiating process, 

and the Palestinian question again became the focus of serious 

diplomatic attention. The hope was that Arafat would move 

forward without the radical PLO elements toward negotiations 

on the basis of Resolution 242. It was not to be. The agreement with Hussein collapsed a year after it had been concluded, 

the victim of renewed PLO preoccupation with its internal 

problems. 

At a meeting of the Palestine National Council in April 

1987, the PLO succeeded in recovering a large measure of 

internal unity. The price, however, was high. The hardliners 

insisted that Arafat formally disavow the agreement with 

Hussein and agree to a resolution denouncing Egypt and the 

Camp David accords. Egypt responded swiftly, closing the 

PLO office in Cairo and severing contact with Arafat and other 
14 JOSEPH P. LORENZ 

high-level PLO officials. In light of the longstanding special 

relationship between Egypt and Fatah, the Egyptians were 

angered by what they saw as Arafat's ingratitude and Cairo's 

support for the PLO leadership after its expulsion from 

Lebanon. Seven months later, amid the scramble of Arab states 

to reopen their embassies, Egypt quietly let the PLO return 

to its Cairo office. 

Just when the Palestinian question began to look like a 

sterile exercise in which exiled politicians maneuvered for power 

and foreign ministers issued white papers, the Palestinians of 

Gaza and the West Bank brought the problem back to life. 

The political inexperience of the young people in the forefront 

gave the uprising a spontaneity that caught the Arab imagination. And its emotional impact, especially on Arab youth and 

religious elements, seemed bound to grow in the absence of 

movement toward a Palestinian settlement. 

The uprising began three weeks after the Amman 

summit ended. Its timing may have been affected by frustration at the indifference to Palestinian concerns shown at the 

summit, although there is no clear evidence that this was the 

case. Whatever their intentions, the insurgents returned the 

Palestinian issue to the priority on the Arab agenda that it had 

lost. 

Egypt's Relationship With Israel 

The settlement between Egypt and Israel negotiated at 

Camp David is one of the most important factors shaping interArab relations, but also one of the most complex. The durability of the peace treaty has had one set of consequences, the 

failure of the Palestinian autonomy negotiations, another. And 

while Egyptians and Israelis have been responding to events 

and to each other, the attitudes and policies that emerged from 

their interaction also influenced the views of the other Arabs. 

The dominant factor, however, is that the peace treaty 

has endured. It has survived the assassination of the man who 

broke with the Arab world to make it, the concerted efforts 

of the Arabs to punish Egypt for its conclusion, and Israel's 

invasion of Lebanon over Egypt's strong protests and the recall 

of its ambassador. Arab recognition that the peace between 
EGYPT AND THE NEW ARAB COALITION 15 

Egypt and Israel is here to stay has been a psychological watershed in Middle Eastern politics. Along with the ideological and 

strategic factors that have been discussed, the treaty has helped 

to shift the Arab center of gravity toward acceptance of the 

need for a negotiated final settlement. 

Egyptian policy toward Israel since Camp David has 

followed a stable pattern despite periods of frustration at what 

Egyptians sometimes perceive as Israel's disregard for their 

views. At the heart of Egypt's policy is the goal of bringing 

the Arab world with it into a peace with Israel. This requires 

constant attention to the often flickering interest of Arabs and 

Israelis alike in the negotiating process. Like Sadat before him, 

Mubarak has kept Arab concerns before the Israelis, just as 

he has tried to keep serious negotiating proposals on the Arab 

agenda. 

An example of the kind of bridging role that Egypt is able 

to play because of its relations with Israel, the Arabs, and the 

United States occurred in the spring of 1988. After Saudi 

Arabia's purchase of Chinese missiles had been revealed, Israeli 

officials were quoted as advocating their removal by force. On 

24 March, Cairo's Al Abram carried the announcement from 

an official source that "Egypt would consider any Israeli 

aggression on Saudi Arabia as an attack on Egypt, to which 

it would respond with force and determination." The same 

day Mubarak reportedly told journalists that an Israeli attack 

would "blow up the entire peace process." Then on 4 April, 

after the Israelis had moderated their tone, Field Marshal Abu 

Ghazala expressed satisfaction to reporters at Israel's "appropriate reaction" to Egyptian and US representations. It 

seems fair to conclude that Egypt saw the episode as 

highlighting for the Saudis and other Arabs of the importance 

of the Egypt-Israel connection. 

There is no way of knowing whether Egyptian views have 

or have not determined Israeli policy in any given situation, 

but certainly they strengthen the hand of those arguing for 

greater attentiveness to Arab concerns. In times of Middle East 

tension, one more factor that Israeli decisionmakers must take 

into account is the impact of Israel's actions on its relationship with Egypt. 
16 JOSEPH P. LORENZ 

The question of how much attention to pay to Egypt 

has become part of a longstanding Israeli debate about 

the relative importance to Israel of the states on the periphery 

of the Middle East versus those at its core. Some Israelis 

maintain that the peace treaty with Egypt should, in logic, 

change the old theory that the periphery (Iran, Turkey, 

and Ethiopia, for example) should be cultivated to balance 

the hostility of the core. They believe that peace with Egypt 

made real the possibility of better relations with the core, 

at the same time that the Iranian revolution was making relations with the periphery far more problematic. Israel can exploit the opportunity, they argue, by taking Cairo's views 

seriously. 2 

Israelis are divided about the implications for them of 

Egypt's return to a central position in Arab affairs. Some fear 

that the process could radicalize Egypt, causing it to reintegrate 

militarily with the other Arabs. Others believe that Arab acceptance of the one Arab nation that negotiated directly with 

Israel can only be to Israel's advantage. 

The implications for Israel of an emerging centrist Arab 

bloc have also been the subject of lively discussion among 

Israelis. Some, like former Foreign Minister Abba Eban, 

believe that a revolutionary change is taking place in the Arab 

world, in which the Arabs "may be on their way to changing 

their struggle with Israel from one about legitimacy to a 

pragmatic argument about interests and territory. ''3 Eban 

regards the Amman summit as the continuation of a process 

that Sadat began ten years before when he visited Jerusalem. 

He is concerned that Israel may fail to grasp the nature of that 

process and, in doing so, miss an historic opportunity to move 

toward peace. 

2 One proponent of this view is Aharon Yariv, former Chief of Israeli 

Military Intelligence and now Director of Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center 

for Strategic Studies. Yariv described his position at a seminar on 10 

December 1987, which was sponsored by the Washington Institute for Near 

East Policy. 

3 Thomas L. Friedman, "New Attitude of Arabs a Challenge, Eban 

Says," New York Times, 17 November 1987, p. AI0. 
EGYPT AND THE NEW ARAB COALITION 17 

The stabilizing effect of the peace treaty and the parties' 

commitment to it is offset by the failure of the Camp David 

accords to stimulate a negotiating dynamic on the Palestinian 

issue. That failure not only undercuts the forces working for 

Israel's acceptance by other Arab moderates but saps the 

Egypt-Israel relationship of its vitality. No other issue has the 

same potential to turn Egypt and Israel back to a position of 

belligerency. 

Sympathy for Palestinian aspirations has been a persistent current in Egypt since 1936, when a cross section of the 

politically aware elements of society pressed the Wafd government to support the Palestinians in their uprising against the 

British. Egypt's Islamic groups have a special affinity for the 

Palestinians, and Mubarak clearly has no intention of ignoring those groups. He has on the contrary tried to draw them 

into the country's established political institutions, to the point 

that Muslim Brotherhood members now dominate the opposition in the People's Assembly. 

Nonetheless, the average Egyptian is likely to regard the 

Palestinian issue with less commitment and more ambivalence 

than either the religious right or the secular left. He is exasperated by the infighting in the PLO leadership and, after 

four major wars with Israel, has little patience with Arabs who 

instruct Egypt in its obligations to the Palestinians. And yet, 

as an Arab, he cannot help but feel drawn to the Palestinian 

people and their struggle for justice. 

The Mubarak regime has shown itself sensitive both to 

the inflammable nature of the Palestinian question for key 

opposition groups and to the unwillingness of ordinary Egyptians to have their country's policies subordinated to the 

interests of the Palestinians or anyone else. When all is said 

and done, however, the question of Egyptian support for the 

Palestinians at a time of crisis or serious danger may be one 

of the few issues in which public opinion could bring the 

Mubarak government to take measures it would rather avoid. 

Signs of Change 

Three signposts in the mid-1980s pointed the way to the 

Amman summit and its decision that one Arab state's peace 
18 JOSEPH P. LORENZ 

with Israel need not rule out good relations with the others. 

The first, and most important, was Jordan's resumption of 

diplomatic relations with Egypt in September 1984. The move 

cost Jordan little; with the exception of Syria, there was hardly 

a ripple in the Arab world. The close relationship that 

developed between Egypt and Jordan nudged the regional 

balance of power further toward the center. Egyptian support 

enabled Hussein to pursue an independent policy on the peace 

process that was considerably ahead of the Arab consensus. 

Another sign of growing self-confidence among the 

moderates was the decision by Morocco's King Hassan to meet 

with Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres in July 1986. The 

meeting was consistent with Hassan's longstanding, behindthe-scenes efforts to encourage an Arab-Israel accommodation, but this time Morocco acknowledged its role openly. 

Although Syria broke relations with Morocco, it was alone in 

doing so. 

The third signpost on the road from Baghdad to Amman 

was Egypt's return to full membership in the Islamic Conference Organization at a summit held in Kuwait in January 

1987. At the opening of the meeting, Syria challenged Egypt's 

participation but was overwhelmingly defeated. Later, Arabs 

and Africans alike assailed Libya for its intervention in Chad. 

The fact that many of the conferees were from Africa, where 

Egyptian diplomacy had been extremely active in the postCamp David period, probably contributed to the moderate, 

pro-Egyptian atmosphere of the session. Mubarak arrived early 

at the summit to consult with other heads of state, and when 

it was over, he made a brief, but triumphal, tour of the Gulf. 

Egypt's Pursuit of Arab Reintegration 

Mubarak's use of the Islamic summit to cement Egyptian bilateral relations was one example of Egypt's versatile 

diplomacy in the mid-1980s. If the goal of Egyptian diplomacy 

was the swift resumption of sound economic and political relationships with the moderate Arabs, its style was to project a 

public posture that was correct, aloof, almost detached. It was 

a mix that encouraged the trend toward centrism that was 

already under way. 
EGYPT AND THE NEW ARAB COALITION 19 

Beneath the surface, the policies of Mubarak and of Sadat 

had much in common. They shared an assumption that the 

rest of the Arab world had no choice in the end but to follow 

Egypt's lead. The difference was that whereas Sadat nursed 

a sense of personal betrayal that boiled over into public 

recrimination, Mubarak approached the differences with the 

Arabs with the same dispassion and plain speaking that mark 

his style on every issue. 

Four more-or-less distinct lines of strategy can be 

discerned in Egypt's pursuit of Arab reintegration. First was 

the creation of special relationships with the countries 

critical to Egyptian objectives--Jordan, through strong 

support for King Hussein's initiative for an international 

peace conference and cooperation in military and strategic 

matters; Saudi Arabia, through perhaps the most outspoken defense in the Arab world of Saudi handling of the 

Iranian demonstrations at Mecca; and Iraq, through unqualified political backing in the Gulf war and the provision 

of advisers for its army, manpower for its farms, and about 

one billion dollars a year in arms sales for its military 

force. A second, related strand of Egyptian policy was the 

systematic development of a network of bilateral relations 

with the great majority of Arab states, gradually isolating the 

handful that remained opposed to normalization. 

The third element of strategy was to put Egypt squarely 

in the Arab mainstream on matters of Arab-wide importance. 

Egypt's vigorous support of the Gulf states against Iran was 

the most striking example, but also significant was its support 

for the Palestinians on a number of issues and its defense of 

the PLO leadership against efforts to divide it. 

The fourth ingredient was not so much a strategy as a 

facet of the Egyptian temperament, but that ingredient had 

real consequences affecting the previous three. To a marked 

degree, national pride governed the making of foreign policy: 

the Egyptians consistently declined to apologize for the Camp 

David framework or the peace treaty with Israel. Later, 

Mubarak's refusal to make the least concession in exchange 

for Egyptian participation in the Algiers summit was to slow 

the pace of reintegration. But Egypt returns to the Arab 
20 JOSEPH P. LORENZ 

community with its obligation intact and its peace with Israel 

an accepted fact of international life. 

That some of Egypt's regional policies hastened its return 

to the Arab world does not mean those policies were not 

strongly embraced in principle. Certainly that is true of the 

tilt toward Iraq. Policy-makers and ordinary Egyptians alike 

view the threat from revolutionary Iran as real. Indeed, as far 

as one can tell, there is little sympathy for Khomeini's revolution except among the most radical Islamic fringe groups. After 

the Mecca rioting, for example, the Muslim Brotherhood-- 

after a period of soul-searching, it is true--publicly condemned 

the Iranian demonstrators and supported Saudi actions to suppress the violence. 

Yet to assume that any inclination to commit Egyptian 

troops to the conflict exists would be a mistake. Fifteen years 

after the last war with Israel, the desire for peace and the opposition to the use of Egyptian armed forces outside the country except in defense of vital national interests remain as deep 

as ever. Moreover, for the current generation of military 

leaders, Nasser's ineffectual intervention in Yemen during the 

mid-sixties was a formative experience. And, moving troops 

and equipment abroad quickly without a large air transport 

capability is still a practical problem. 

Despite these constraints, Egypt has what Field Marshal 

Abu Ghazala publicly described as a vital security interest in 

preventing Iraq's collapse and the extension of Iranian influence to the shores of the Red Sea. The conclusion of a 

military cooperation agreement with Kuwait in December 1987 

reflects this interest. Given the opposing forces on its Gulf 

policy, Egypt would probably consider direct military involvement only if the threat was imminent and Egypt was publicly 

asked to contribute to a multinational Arab force. 

If there is one point on which all Egyptians agree, it is 

that the country's first priority is to build a healthy, prosperous 

society at home. Because the government's Arab policies are 

driven largely by practical economic and financial considerations, they appear to be widely accepted, even by much of the 

opposition. In the last two years, Arab tourism to Egypt increased by one-third; financial aid from Saudi Arabia and 
EGYPT AND THE NEW ARAB COALITION 21 

Kuwait reportedly began to flow again in substantial amounts; 

and some three million Egyptians working in other Arab countries continued to send home remittances to eleven or twelve 

million family members. Despite falling revenues in the Gulf 

states, the anticipated forced return of large numbers of Egyptian workers does not seem to have occurred although a 

substantial drop in new hiring has. 

The days of an Egyptian mission to unite the Arab world 

or singlehandedly bring peace to the Middle East have passed. 

The government's pursuit of tangible national interests both 

reflects popular sentiment and reinforces it. Yet the current 

climate of opinion is in no way isolationist; Egypt's pragmatic 

self-interest is seen to include a leadership role that is commensurate with its real weight in the region. 

Egypt's Important Arab Relationships 

By the mid-1980s Cairo had developed, through careful 

spadework, reasonably good relations with every Arab state 

except Syria, Libya, Democratic Yemen, and Algeria. The 

absence of formal diplomatic relations with most Arab countries did not cramp the growth of busy Arab interest sections 

in Cairo or large Egyptian missions in the Arab capitals. Of 

the smaller Arab countries, the Gulf states, led by the United 

Arab Emirates, were the most active in seeking close links with 

Egypt. Their interest in Egypt's Arab reintegration seems to 

have grown in proportion to their sense of vulnerability to Iranian invasion and subversion. 

Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq provided the driving force 

for Egyptian reintegration at the Amman summit. For the first 

time in modern history, these three key Arab states were united 

with Egypt in opposition to Syrian policy. How this will affect Syria's approach to the Gulf war and the Middle East 

negotiating process is too soon to say. Certainly it is the kind 

of configuration that Syria has in the past done its best to avoid. 

Of all of Egypt's Arab relationships, the strongest was 

forged with Jordan. Bilateral ties now span a broad range of 

activities, including a growing number of joint business 

ventures and trade links which give depth to the relationship. 

As noted earlier, the new relationship has benefited both 
22 JOSEPH P. LORENZ 

countries. For Mubarak it meant that one of the region's most 

skilled practitioners of diplomacy was at the service of Egypt's 

Arab reintegration. For Hussein it meant increased weight in 

Arab councils. With Iraq and Egypt behind him, the king had 

more room to maneuver in the peace negotiations and less need 

to worry about Syrian and radical Palestinian views. The 

association with Egypt fulfilled what is perhaps the guiding 

principle of Jordanian balance of power diplomacy: of the four 

major eastern Arab powers (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and 

Iraq), at least two, and if possible three, must be friendly to 

Jordan. 

The support of Saudi Arabia was less obvious but equally 

important to Egypt's Arab reintegration. Setting aside the 

rivalry of the Nasser era and the bitterness of the recriminations with Sadat after Camp David was not easy. Sooner or 

later reconciliation was probably inevitable in view of the many 

interests shared by Cairo and Riyadh, but the process would 

have taken much longer had it not been for the kingdom's compelling need to have the Arab world's largest standing army 

behind it. At Amman, although careful to avoid confrontation with Syria and Libya, the Saudis were in the forefront 

of the movement to overturn the Arab League ban on 

diplomatic relations with Egypt. 

Egypt's important Arab relationship with Iraq has been 

the one most closely tied to the war in the Gulf. The relationship will doubtless continue to be strongly affected by the IranIraq connection, especially if the Gulf cease-fire does not lead 

to verifiable arms limitations and a lessening of the long-term 

threat from Iran. For unless and until that happens, Iraq will 

be in no position to offend its conservative Arab supporters 

or reassert its claims to Arab leadership. Reasons of state aside, 

eight years of fighting may have an even more fundamental 

impact on Iraq's regional policies. Like Egypt after its many 

years of conflict with Israel, the Iraqi regime may be compelled 

by popular sentiment to turn away from foreign ventures and 

concentrate on internal reconstruction and development. 

Already Baghdad has moved from total rejection of 

Israel. Saddam Hussein's statements and the positions taken 
EGYPT AND THE NEW ARA8 COALITION 23 

by Iraq at Arab meetings are close to the mainstream Arab 

position favoring a negotiated settlement on the basis of the 

land-for-peace formulation in UN Security Council Resolution 242--although Iraq has not formally accepted that 

resolution. 

Saddam Hussein has clearly indicated that Iraq would not 

oppose any solution that the PLO accepted, including confederation with Jordan. Soon after the Palestinian uprising 

began, he met with Mubarak and Arafat in Baghdad for talks 

which, according to the Iraqi press, involved the coordination 

of Palestinian policy. If Iraq should in fact work with Egypt 

and Saudi Arabia to strengthen the mainstream elements of 

the PLO, the long-term prospects of the centrist coalition will 

improve. 

The Algiers Conference 

In early June 1988, Arab heads of state met in Algiers 

to coordinate support for the Palestinian uprising. Since the 

conference was concerned with the issue that speaks most 

directly to Arab emotions, it provided a different perspective 

from Amman, where the focus was on practical measures to 

counter a common threat. 

To almost everyone's surprise, Egypt was not invited to 

the summit by its Algerian hosts. Six months after Amman, 

Algeria was alone with Libya, Syria, and Lebanon (the latter 

following Syria's lead in foreign policy) in not having reestabfished relations with Egypt. It seemed improbable that Algeria, 

with its own Arab leadership aspirations, would isolate itself 

with the two Arab countries that sympathized with Iran and 

were at odds with the PLO leadership. In truth, the Algerians 

could not have relished the prospect of their summit being used as a launching pad for Egypt's return to the Arab League. 

Yet the real reason for Egypt's absence seems to have been 

less a matter of policy than that of unwillingness by both Egypt 

and Algeria to make the least concession to the other. 

Before the summit, the Algerians asked that Egyptian 

Foreign Minister Abdel Meguid pay a visit to Algeria, after 

which the two governments would announce the resumption 
24 JosEPH P. LORENZ 

of relations. 4 Egypt viewed the request as a condition to 

renewed relations and refused to consider it. Various efforts 

followed to break the impasse, but neither party would bend. 

As the summit got under way, Mubarak flew off to Baghdad 

to consult with Saddam Hussein on matters of Gulf security. 

If a message was intended, it probably was not lost on the conferees in Algiers. 

At the conference itself, two controversial issues arose 

that shed light on the evolution of the power competition between centrists and militants. The issues had to do with who 

should disburse financial aid to the insurgents and how the 

US initiative for renewed negotiations for a Palestinian settlement should be treated. 

The PLO's apparent goals were to win Arab endorsement 

of its exclusive right to distribute funds and to obtain a commitment of $300 million to $400 million a year to sustain the 

uprising. King Hussein vigorously opposed Arafat's bid for 

power over the West Bank Palestinians. His case was helped 

by the main donors' desire to retain some control over how 

their aid was used and through whom it flowed. In the end, 

the PLO was treated as one of several channels for the distribution of funds. 5 And to assure a continuing moderate voice in 

support of the uprising, a policy guidance committee was set 

up, comprising Algeria, Syria, the PLO, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, 

Qatar, and Bahrain, the last four constituting a majority. 

The PLO suffered another setback in the amount of aid 

that was to be set aside. The donor states declined to be bound 

by the conference to a specific sum. Shortly after the summit, 

however, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait committed $50 million to 

be used by the PLO over a six-month period. 

Arafat reportedly mounted a major campaign to have the 

summit reject outright the American peace proposal, which 

Secretary of State Shultz had that same week been pressing 

in Israel, Jordan, and Syria. Clearly the PLO had concluded 

4 Cairo's AI Akhbar of 2 June 1988 carries the official Egyptian account of the episode. 

5 Youssef M. Ibrahim, "Arab Declaration Falls Short of P.L.O. 

Demands," New York Times, 10 June 1988, p. A6. 
EGYPT AND THE NEW ARAB COALITION 25 

that the plan diminished its status by emphasizing the roles 

of Jordan and the indigenous Palestinians in the negotiating 

process, rather than treating the PLO as the Palestinians' sole 

legitimate representative. Algeria, Libya, and Syria joined the 

PLO in the attack, while Saudi Arabia led the effort to keep 

the door open to the American initiative. 

The upshot was a decision to criticize the US initiative 

by inference, mildly in the communique, more harshly in the 

resolution. The resolution rejects "partial and individual 

solutions ... which deny all basic rights to the Palestinian 

people." Clearly there was no consensus that the United States 

disengage from the peace process; in fact, the centrist states 

seemed to regard American involvement as reinforcing their 

position, even if they disagreed with parts of the proposal. 

Beyond these two controversial topics, the heads of state 

were largely content to stay with the formulations worked out 

in Fez and Amman. Iran, however, was not forgotten. Iranian 

"aggression" was roughly condemned, and total solidarity was 

pledged to Iraq--with no objection from Syria. 

The Momentum for Centrism 

Although the PLO did not attain its major objectives in 

Algiers, concluding that this represents a lessening of its influence in the occupied territories would be a mistake. What 

the summit reflected was inter-Arab relationships and conference dynamics, not the state of relations between the PLO 

and the insurgents. In fact, the PLO--helped by Israel's policy 

of deporting emerging, popular leaders from the West Bank 

and Gaza--seems to have captured the allegiance of much of 

the indigenous leadership. In doing so the PLO strengthened 

its position at the expense of Jordan, leading King Hussein 

to withdraw from active engagement in the search for a 

Palestinian settlement. 

Yet these shifts seem inherently unstable. They depend 

on the uprising itself--on the political direction it takes, the 

leaders it produces, and the doors it opens for a peaceful settlement. If an overt indigenous leadership is allowed to develop 

and conditions come to favor serious negotiations, the insurgents will take a hard look at their supporters before 
26 JOSEPH P. LORENZ 

deciding which of them can offer the most practical and 

effective assistance in ending the occupation. 

Moderates and hardliners alike were brought together at 

the summit by a common sympathy for the Palestinian cause 

and for those striving to advance it in the occupied territories. 

On the controversial issues, however, the moderates held their 

ground; the movement toward a centrist coalition seemed, if 

anything, to gain impetus from the conference. 

Common attitudes and strategic interests continue to draw 

the centrist states together, and expanding bilateral ties give 

muscle to their association. The momentum seems bound to 

carry the coalition beyond the collective security requirements 

of the Gulf war to cooperation in other areas of common 

concern. 

The most important of these areas is the Middle East 

peace process. Here serious limits exist on what the moderates 

can accomplish even if, as seems likely, Egypt returns soon 

to full Arab League membership. Because the Arab configuration now breaks down into a dominant majority favoring 

negotiations on terms that Israel might reasonably be brought 

to accept, and a minority that rejects such negotiations, one 

might expect that the centrists would use their weight to bring 

about a common Arab negotiating position. They may in fact 

try to do so. But they know from experience (most notably 

from the pre-Geneva consultations of 1977) how powerful a 

minority becomes when it believes its vital interests are 

threatened. If the centrist coalition succeeds in bringing Syria 

and the radical wing of the PLO into negotiations, it will be 

because the centrist coalition has created an environment in 

which the alternatives are either a fair balance of Palestinian, 

Israeli, and Arab state interests or a future of growing isolation and irrelevance. 

Joseph P. Lorenz, a former Senior Fellow of the Strategic Concepts 

Development Center of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, is a 

specialist in Middle East affairs. From 1958 until 1987, he was a member 

of the US Foreign Service.